Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday November 22, 2013 @02:48PM
from the i-blame-the-sun dept.

mdsolar sends this quote from an article about the politics of solar energy:
"Clean energy technology has always been an easy punching bag for conservatives. Propelled by growing strain of global warming denial within their party, Republicans in Congress have proposed to slash funding for renewable energy programs in half this year, and mocked the idea of a green economy as “groovy” liberal propaganda. Their argument, as laid out by House Republicans and libertarian organs like the Cato Institute and Reason magazine, is that the federal government shouldn't 'pick winners and losers' in the energy markets or gamble taxpayer dollars on renewable-energy loans to companies like Solyndra, the Silicon Valley solar panel manufacturer that went bankrupt in 2011 after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees. The assumption has always been that, without heavy government subsidies, renewable energy sources like solar and wind power would never be able to compete with fossil fuels. But something funny has happened to renewables that major power companies and their Republican allies didn't see coming. Over the past two years, the solar industry has skyrocketed, with one new solar unit installed every four minutes in the US, according to the renewable energy research group Greentech Media. The price of photovoltaic panels has fallen 62 percent since January 2011. Once considered a boutique energy source, solar power has become a cost-competitive alternative for many consumers, costing an average $143 per megawatt-hour, down from $236 in the beginning of 2011. Backed by powerful conservative groups, public utilities in several states are now pushing to curb the solar industry, and asking regulators to raise fees and impose new restrictions on solar customers. And as more people turn to rooftop solar as a way to reduce energy costs—90,000 businesses and homeowners installed panels last year, up 46 percent from 2011—the issue is pitting pro-utilities Republicans against this fledgling movement of libertarian-minded activists who see independent power generation as an individual right. In other words, the fight over solar power is raging within the GOP itself."

GOP is not pro-capitalistthis is middle america fighting for subsidies for their products and crying how independent they are. they have no problems subsidizing business that benefits them like oil and corn

Not necessarily. Almost every economist – left or right – suggests that the right answer is to levy a carbon tax. That way capitalism kicks in are reduces greenhouse gasses in a more efficient manner then government subsidies.

You are right – unless there is a negative externality – which there is. And where there is a negative externality, the overwhelming consensus is that a tax is the best choice. A carbon tax would cause less of a distortion than any other option. If it an action is causing $1.00 worth of harm then tax that action for $1.00 Taxing is better than regulation, subsidies, cap and trade, etc.

How could there be GOP figures busily lobbying in favor of state taxation and repression of individuals in the interests of incumbent corporations?

I've been assured, with a level of seriousness that only they can muster, by any number of internet randroids, that the right is the side of personal freedom and autonomy, and the left is the path of collectivist fascism and agenda-21! How could this be?

It's always been about entrenched interests maintaining the status quo.Interestingly, the entrenched interests in this case aren't gas/oil companies,they already started diversifying years ago, it's the power utilities who are resistant to the change.

It's always been about entrenched interests maintaining the status quo.
Interestingly, the entrenched interests in this case aren't gas/oil companies,
they already started diversifying years ago, it's the power utilities who are resistant to the change.

oh i'm aware. sometimes i forget sarcasm doesn't translate well on the interwebs:P

in my estimation, we should be pushing for research and investment in alternative fuel and energy tech. the U.S. should be at the forefront, creating new industries and manufacturing jobs in the process. of course, the current status quo and current companies have a problem with losing their "privileged" status, and their political proxies foist it off as "picking winners and losers".

Did you even read the article you linked to? Most of those subsidies take the form of things like allowing corporations to deduct expenses from their taxes (much like any other business). One of the supposed subsidies to the oil and gas industry cited in the report is government heating assistance for the poor.

And maybe encourage saving energy more strongly. One thing that struck me when I was on business in Phoenix, Arizona, is how energy inefficient everything was. I would take warm showers in my air conditioned apartment, while it was 40C outside. The water was no doubt heating with electricity or gas. Why not use solar water heaters? And why are the offices air conditioned so much? What a huge waste of energy. The apartment was equipped with a washing machine and a dryer. Do people in the desert really use a dryer? You can just hang your clothes out for an hour and everything will be bone dry. Why were people driving huge trucks just to go to work? There is HUGE potential for reducing energy consumption, which I suspect is the lowest hanging fruit.

The GOP allowed solar -production- to be kicked over to China. First, the solar companies were complaining about Chinese intrusion attempts, then China started dumping panels on our shores for cheaper than it cost US makers to buy the rare earths.

However, the split is going along two lines of two GOP platforms. Dislike for government versus respect for Big Oil/Big Coal. Solar allows people to be fairly independent [1].

Solar also scales well. One can have a one watt panel to keep a vent fan spinning on a RV's roof, or a multi-megawatt array powering a city like Austin.

Solar is also fairly easy to deploy. Got a clear line of sight to the south? Might as well slap a few panels up, add a grid-tie inverter, and have a lower power bill, or if in a more rural area, have the power feed into a battery bank for complete off-grid use, or even a combination of both with some outlets in a house on utility powers, others feeding from the batteries. Same thing if one has a carport. Might as well have the flat roof do something.

As for price, solar panel prices have gotten to a point where it becomes a "why not?" as opposed to a "why bother?" This is especially true in the RV industry.

[1]: Almost. Good luck having a modern building in the southern US without air conditioning unless one is content to deal with high humidity.

China's a bit of a wedge issue, because doctrinaire free-marketeers don't really know what to make of mercantilists...

More nationalistic elements, and people who care about god, guns, and gays but also need a job, tend to get jumpy at even the faintest hints of foreign mercantilism; but the free-marketeers can never resist the fact that 'dumping' is another word for "Crazy low prices, right now!" (see also, every company who has ever offshored production, and then been Shocked, Shocked, to learn that the initial absurdly good deal was to encourage them to bring technology and skills over, and now it is Exciting Mandatory Joint Venture With State-Owned Company time...)

So long as China is willing to live in a toxic industrial hellzone and make various initially unprofitable moves, their prices for goods and labor will be too good for the free marketeers and slash 'n burn corporate reorg guys to say no to; but the nationalists and nativists will always be jumpy about it...

So long as China is willing to live in a toxic industrial hellzone and make various initially unprofitable moves, their prices for goods and labor will be too good for the free marketeers and slash 'n burn corporate reorg guys to say no to; but the nationalists and nativists will always be jumpy about it...

I've always thought the solution to this was rather simple.

Just require that anything imported into the US for consumption be produced under the same EPA rules as if they had been made here.

Want those cheap Chinese iPads? No problem, but they have to be made in China the same way they would have to be made here, no toxic dumping.

Companies might find it cheaper to bring back production than to ensure clean production overseas.

People here want solar. Like the article mentions, there was a vote this week to raise monthly costs of solar users here in AZ. The public utility wanted an increase of $50 - $100 per month and spent $3.7 million on an advertising and lobbying campaign (in addition to the money they always contribute to the entirely-Republican-staffed committee that regulates them). After the vote, regulators approved a $5 increase per month. People here realize that APS is trying to stifle solar, and this is arguably the best state in the country for solar production. People want solar, and the regulators understand that (despite being Republicans).

Just to point it out... Just because a few very vocal groups in the GOP are claiming to be libertarian, that does not mean that libertarians are GOP.
The interests of the two groups do not align very well, so a conflict such as this is only to be expected.

A bunch of others claiming to be libertarian (like RON PAUL and many of his followers) are really states-rightsers; in other words, they're happy to let the state governments oppress you, but the feds had better not try to put a stop to it or decide to oppress someone else.

Solar accounts for 0.17% of our electric production in this country, tripling it won't make any difference.

The numbers are not on solar's side. Electric production from fossil fuels is up more than 30% in the past 20 years, it isn't being replace by solar, demand is growing faster than solar panels are being installed.

I agree that pollution is bad, I agree that releasing tons of CO2 is probably bad (we don't know for sure, but I don't want to find out the hard way, better to play it safe and not burn it all)

My primary complaint is that people who talk about renewables simply are working from emotion and not from numbers and math. The math is not on renewables side, I'm sorry to say.

A billion people in the world are going to get access to AC and clean water over the next 50 years. It matters not what the USA and Europe do, our populations will be overwhelmed by China and India's use of coal in that time.

We need large scale power sources. Right now, the options are coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear.

The sooner environmentalists get off the solar kick and focus on reality, the sooner we can replace fossil fuels with something else. (Which in this case is nuclear, since it is the only option left)

> Solar accounts for 0.17% of our electric production in this country, tripling it won't make any difference.

Is this counting only energy company production or people/companies reducing their consumption from the grid by augmenting it with solar? If so, how?

> The sooner environmentalists get off the solar kick and focus on reality, the sooner we can replace fossil fuels with something else. (Which in this case is nuclear, since it is the only option left)

You assume the growth curve of solar is purely linear and will always be purely linear, and you're already wrong. There are knees in the curve. Those knees are system price points. Above $70,000 for an installation (a decade ago) and you don't get very many new installations. At $50,000 you get more. At $30,000, still more. At today's price of under $10,000 you get many more. Many many more. Projections are 2014 will be a record breaking year for new installations. Not only is the deployment of solar power accelerating, the rate of growth of deployment is also accelerating.

Solar photovoltaics are likely to follow a growth curve that looks like the adoption of LCD TVs. It will be exponential for some period of time, then abruptly level off as all the useful roofs owned by people with available capital are covered. That's a lot of roofs, and hundreds of gigawatts.

Congress (especially GOP members) don't seem to understand that we have no choice but to pick losers and winners. Their reluctance to fund research into alternative energy sources just ensures that the United States will lose. By the time they finally realize we have no choice but to get on board, we will have to pay China, Germany..... to use the technology because it will have already been developed and made practical (and profitable) by them.

The only reason you subsidize renewable energy generation such as solar is to make it currently viable whereas otherwise it would not.The only reason you make renewable energy generation currently viable is to jump start development.The only reason you jump start development is if you want to be the one producing the technology or buying the technology.

There is also the matter that on a grand scale, infrastructure takes awhile to build, it isn't something you can just do overnight.

Anyway so long as the idea isn't that things like solar is going to solve all your energy issues because it will not. It is part of a generation mix. You can however increase its effectiveness and the percent used overall to help mitigate other energy related issues.

Solar is great for micro/local-level offsets in particularly sunny places, and it's good if you want to build a compound for the zombie apocalypse. As a key component of energy policy for the United States, it is not and has never been practical compared to wind or nuclear power.

Politicians in every party love being able to pick winners and losers. It's one of the perks of the jobs. People imagine solar as warm, fuzzy, and mother Earth friendly. If that were the case, Germany wouldn't have a bigger carbon footprint now than it did before it had the world's largest nameplate capacity of solar power production.

If you're concerned about global warming from burning fossil fuels, the only choice at the moment that satisfies all the requirements of most first world country's energy policy is nuclear. Nothing else comes close.

Many states can use the cheap solar hot water systems, costing $3-5k professionally installed, less than half that if you're not scared of plumbing. It's not all about generating electricity, spinning meters backwards or off-grid storage.

Some countries around the Mediterranean have laws that all buildings have to have solar systems to heat domestic water. They're different designs from ours, looking somewhat clunky and like the old USSR hodgepodge satellites, but they're effective.

Here in FL, every other cookie cutter house has a pool solar system, but very few have domestic hot water panels, even though they're cheaper and take up far less roof space, and save having to have the 50 gallon tank powered all day every day. I find this very bizarre.

Our house (2 adults, 2 kids) hot water is purely heated from the sun bar the 10-14 days of the year when I have to switch on the power to the tank due to extended cloud coverage. We also have pool panels, but to get the benefit of extending the pool usage period, we have to have the pool pump running a lot longer, which uses a fair amount of power.

I live in Phoenix. The only solar hot water heaters you see around here were put up 20 years ago when the politicians handed out rebates for installing them. Now, they're simply roof decorations. This, in an area where 20' of copper pipe on the roof is probably a good enough hot water heater 6 months of the year.

I have an electric hot water heater. The developer created a very nice niche for it - inside the air-conditioned portion of the house. So, any heat leakage from it needs to be carried away by my electric Air Conditioner.

I have an electric clothes dryer. In a very nice niche inside the air-conditioned portion of the house. So, for 8 months of the year, I use electricity to run the air conditioner to cool the air in my house, which then gets run into the dryer which uses a lot of electricity to heat it back up, and exhausts it outside - which draws more hot air back inside my house.

Their argument, as laid out by House Republicans and libertarian organs like the Cato Institute and Reason magazine, is that the federal government shouldn't 'pick winners and losers' in the energy markets...

Last year, the five largest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil — earned $118 billion profit at a time when consumers paid record-high gas prices. This haul follows after a year the companies earned a record $137 billion profit.

If enough people start putting in solar arrays and going off grid and or feeding back to the grid it will undermine the electric operators.

Delivered electricity costs might very well go way up for traditional customers. Distribution is a high fixed overhead. Either you sell enough generation or your really screw a certain groups of customers with high fixed minimum charges.

Don't misunderstand I am opposed to doing anything to discourage people from going off grid, installing solar or selling back to the grid. I am also against doing anything specific to encourage it. Government should just stay out.

But consider this their could come a day when having reliable electricity available at your home means paying very high monthly fees to be connected to a grid with fewer and few customers, or being able to invest and maintain an solar array and some kind of storage bank, be it kinetic, capacitance, or chemical batteries. That might create some haves and have nots out of what has become a pretty universal condition presently.

The next thing you know some prick like Obama is going to be arguing for an individual grid connection mandate; because its only affordable if we all participate.

To me we need clean affordable energy whether Global Warming is real or not. We need cheap energy to keep our economy going and we need our children's children to be able to drink clean water and breathe clean air.

What we really need is a President who will tackle energy with the same kind of committment that JFK gave us for the space program. As a country we invested mightily in the program and the process of getting that man on the moon created huge technical advantages for our nation. As a viable program it all went to crap after we reached that goal but we had already made the gains in technology that propelled us for the next few decades.

A similar effort that yielded clean affordable energy would also yield lots of new technologies. We need that and a coordinated effort by the Federal Government is probably the quickest way to get there. That being said, it cannot just exist as a way to reward the President's supporters and just end up as money stuffed into pockets like Solyndra.

Here in Georgia, Georgia Power has been very hostile to anything but coal, nuclear and as reluctantly been replacing coal plants in non-attainment zones (areas that violate the clear air act) with gas powered plants. They have been quoted as saying the sun doesn't shine enough in Georgia or that the wind doesn't blow hard enough off the eastern coast line in the Atlantic ocean. That said, what is most amazing is that Georgia Power it attempting to get a rule passed that states they are the sole provider for all sun derived power for the state of Georgia. Yes, that is correct. If you want to buy solar power from a 3rd party you can not do so in Georgia because only Georgia Power can provide your company solar power. You can put the panels up yourself but you can't enter into an agreement with a 3rd party to install and maintain the panels for you as a monthly business expense. Apparently in Georgia, Georgia Power owns the sun.

It's ironic that you're posting this on the Internet which was invented by government funding.

This isn't about invention of the fundamental underpinnings. Plowsharing is a grand tradition.

This is about development and deployment in the public sector. Bringing the Internet to the masses wasn't government funded. It occurred when the government got out of the way and let commercial interests play with the new toy. (THAT's what Gore rightly claims substantial credit for.) Scaling it up and the burst of innovation in using it was done with private money in a largely free marketplace, not government subsidies.

In fact, government subsidies HURT this development-deployment phase. The picked winners have no incentive to innovate - they're paid to work on what is already there. The non-picked have no incentive to innovate, or even enter the market - they start at a big competitive disadvantage, and if the did succeed they can expect the government's cronies to get still more subsidies (unless, like Solyndra, they collapse so fast the pumping is ineffictive).

Solyndra failed because they spent the government money like water, ending up with a product that was slightly MORE expensive than the non-subsidized competition - when moving potential customers to a new variant of an existing technology requires a substantial improvement in price-performance - and about a factor of ten to obsolete the previous mainstream approach.

What's driving the current burst of innovation and deployment is the loss of government subsidies around the world. Now the playing field is closer to level. More companies are playing with private investment. The products must compete with existing grid systems, so innovation is occurring and price/performance is improving to where they ARE competitive in progressively more situations.

Indeed, panels are now available at less than a dollar per watt, which is about the point where solar starts beating grid costs in most places where there's enough sun, rather than just remote places or small loads where it's cheaper than running miles of new lines.

You're rather cherry-picking your data. Solyndra made a big bet: that the raw cost of the silicon in solar power would be important, and that a remarkably cool manufacturing technique to use a lot less would have a ton of value. As it turns out, that's not how the industry went: silicon costs dropped faster than anticipated, and the manufacturing costs of the Solyndra didn't.

And the internet was absolutely funded for years by the public purse to develop all of the major technologies and to make the same set of "big bets" about the valuable and non-valuable aspects of internet communication. Private people only became interested because of that investment.

And part of the investment was the "picking a winner". The key to the internet is that it worked across multiple vendors. If we hadn't have done that, there would be an ATT network, an IBM network, a Unisys network, and so on. The government chose a winner (cross platform) and a loser (per-company networks).

Yup. At no point was the telecommunications industry given billions of dollars in loan guarantees, grants, low-cost or even free use of public lands/eminent domain claims, and tax write-offs to build out the national internet infrastructure. That never happened and it most certainly isn't STILL happening. Telecoms are a free-market utopia and a testament to how great private industry is in the absence of government intervention.=Smidge=

Well, if we count invading Iraq, to open it up for exploitation by American oil companies, as a subsidy to 'Big Oil' you can add at least $1 trillion in direct costs and lord only knows how much in indirect and delayed costs. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the war in Iraq would eventually cost $1.9 trillion (according to Wikipedia that's $6,300 per U.S. citizen) and I'm pretty sure that figure will be revised and such revisions are normally not downward ones.

And exactly just how much oil have we been pumping out of Iraq since this "investment" you brought up?

I've oft heard this argument that we went to war in Iraq for oil, yet, I've not seen where we've benefited from this glut of oil from there. If we did go for oil, I'd certainly rather see a better return for our investment, but those prices sure haven't come down THAT much.

It's not getting the oil in Iraq that matters. It's maintaining political stability in the Middle East so we can continue to buy oil from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, etc....

Why did we get involved in Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran but not in Rwanda, Central African Republic, Uganda, Darfur? Because political instability in those parts of Africa doesn't substantially affect the US economy.

If there are subsidies above what companies normally get in tax breaks, why would someone against subsidies for solar companies not *also* want to end them for other energy companies? I'd be all for it.

Instead you seem to think, hey theres something wrong over here, so lets add more wrong on top of this other thing that I like.

This is how government spending grows wildly out of control, this mindset of "they got theirs so I get mine".

I grabbed a copy of this the last time it came up on Slashdot -- mostly, the same sorts of tax breaks for cost of doing business that most companies get, except the oil companies in most cases get less (not more) of it than other companies do.

The biggest is what's called the Domestic Manufacturing Deduction. It's a 2004 tax change meant to encourage companies to manufacture in the U.S. It allows companies of almost any type to deduct from their taxable income up to 9 percent of profits from domestic manufacturing. Under the rule, oil and gas companies were classified as manufacturers, but their deduction was capped at 6 percent.

This provision alone is expected to save the oil and gas industry $18.2 billion over the next ten years, or 42 percent of the $44 billion total.

The oil industry feels unfairly singled out. "It can't be good for some and not for others or it is just a punishment," says Stephen Comstock, the tax policy manager at the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry lobbying group.

Another subsidy, established in 1913 to encourage domestic drilling, allows oil companies to deduct more quickly all of the so-called intangible costs of preparing a site for drilling.

To accountants, intangible costs are costs for things that have no salvage value when the well runs dry, including clearing land and pouring concrete. Ordinarily, a business would have to deduct these costs over the life of the drilling site. Instead, small, independent drillers are allowed to deduct all of these expenses in the first year; major, so-called integrated companies like ExxonMobil can deduct 70 percent in the first year.

The break is worth $12.5 billion over the next ten years.

Comstock compares the oil industry's ability to write off the cost of preparing a well to other companies' ability to write off research and development costs. Other tax experts say this is clearly a subsidy.

A rule dating from 1926 that establishes how oil companies can depreciate the value of their wells allows drillers to deduct 15 percent of the well's revenue from its taxable income per year. This is instead of a more traditional depreciation scheme in which the cost of the well is depreciated over the well's life. The tax break was created in part to simplify accounting, so companies wouldn't have to guess how long an oil or gas field would produce in order to calculate how to depreciate it. It can be a boon: The total of the deductions over the life of the well can sometimes be bigger than what the company actually spent on the well.

This provision was eliminated for major oil companies in 1975, but it continues for independent producers. The break is worth $11 billion over 10 years.

Royalties that companies pay foreign governments for the oil they extract are not deductible from U.S taxes. But often the industry is allowed to claim royalties as foreign taxes, which are deductible. Obama and Senate Democrats call this a loophole, and want to close it. Obama doesn't include this in his $44 billion proposal, but Whitney Stanco, an analyst at MF Global, calculates that removing this benefit could cost the industry $8.5 billion over ten years.

If you go off % sure it is less, but if you go off the actually numbers, as in the total it is larger. Second the oil buisness does not need this tax break to survive, or to even have a competitive advantage, their profits show this.

Because every single traditional power source is also heavily subsidized. It's only fair. Plus, we should be encouraging solar over other sources for a host of reasons, namely environment impact and better grid resistance to failures.

Solar would have a hard time fighting against cheaper resources because of the large initial cost, and without market demand there wouldn't be much innovation. Many of its advantages aren't reflected in monetary terms, and others take years to kick in.

That's a good story - but it's abundantly clear that the GOP is not seriously opposed to government intervention in energy markets.

If they were, they would be fighting against oil and ethanol subsidies, would propose winding down the national petroleum reserve (used to manipulate prices) and would never actively fight against particular forms of energy (as described in summary and TFA).

The GOP as always is full of it. They want to pick winners and losers as much as the Dems - just different ones.

The GOP as always is full of it. They want to pick winners and losers as much as the Dems - just different ones.

Yes, the ones that pay them money, or that they personally have a stake in.

Unfortunately, so much of what the GOP says they stand for, when you look at what they really do, is a lie.

They claim to be in favor of free markets, but defend monopolies and incumbents. They claim to be in favor of personal rights, but are often first in line to restrict our personal rights. They claim to believe in liberty, but they're the first to get in line for security measures which curtail Constitutional protections.

It all boils down to "we're the party of big business and the wealthy, the rest of you can eat cake and fuck off".

And since most of us are neither big business nor wealthy, our response to them if "fuck you".

I know you're biased and can easily see where your preferences are but I have to say I agree with you, at least partially. If instead of saying the GOP you had said "virtually all politicians" I would agree 100%. The liberal politicians happily wallow in the same mud as the so called conservatives. I myself, as a conservative, when President Obama was elected said that "at least he'll get rid of that damn Patriot Act." Turns out he's not even a good liberal.

Armchair economist, much? Without *somebody* subsidizing new forms of energy development, we'd still be heating our homes and cooking with wood. Every new energy paradigm finds its footing because some entity invested money in developing the technology. Nuclear energy comes to mind. And you also fail to acknowledge that we pay enormous amounts of money to project our military might to protect shipping lanes to oil-producing regions and that we have played politics for 100 years to insure that oil flows. You can deny it until you are blue in the face, but this does amount to a subsidy.

I'd also argue that a direct government subsidy into advanced energy generation and storage will ultimately yield vast societal benefit that might otherwise never be realized if we rely on only markets. The fact is that pretty much all of our advanced technology and shared infrastructure (computers, space travel, aviation, telecommunications, interstate highway system) has its genesis in government spending. Sadly, this government spending is only ever triggered by the prospect or actuality of warfare. It would be nice if we could motivate ourselves with something other than conflict for a change.

The idea of subsidies is to encourage growth. So why again do fossil fuels need encouragement? They need as much encouragement as people need vehicles over 3 tons (suv's for example). Because that was well thought out.

I have no problem with solar subsidies. It's still an emerging market, costs have gone down because of it and research is still being invested. I have a problem with subsidies being applied to things that don't need encouragement.

While I can't comment on the validity of the "1.3 TRILLION" statement, you are absolutely correct in that the oil industry is heavily subsidized in America. From what understand however, this is across the industry so everyone benefits from lower cost in gasoline. That, and oil is fungible. The problem with subsidizing Solar manufacturing is that you can't ever compete with China. Effectively, companies like Solyndra feed off the funding and quickly fold leaving an empty husk in the process. This is the "ch

Given that the cases being described are haggling over the pricing of grid-connected; but partially solar-powered, utility customers, this seems like it would be about as close to a generic, company-neutral 'subsidizing solar energy' as one could reasonably imagine: Since it's major inconvenience is darkness, a problem that can either be fixed expensively with on-site batteries or generators, or cheaply (but with costs, of vehemently debated size) for the grid operator, by an electrical grid hookup, the T

I've bought a fair amount of Solyndra industrial automation components off ebay over the last 2 years. I usually get these components for 10% of retail cost. In most cases they are new, in the box. Solyndra's bankruptcy has helped me.

This is the "choosing winers and losers" that Republicans don't like. It simply isn't fair. Now subsidizing Solar ENERGY, now that I can get onboard with so long as it's sustainable

Except this story is all about Republicans making it more difficult (and trying to make it impossible) and less profitable for those who purchased solar panels, to tie them into the grid, where they help your neighbors, reduce grid losses, reduce the need for expensive peaking plants, reduce emissions, etc., etc. It's the corrupt fascists in the Republican party choosing "big coal" as the winner, and "consumer solar" as the loser.

People who are in love with solar panels should buy their own damn solar panels with their own cash, not my tax dollars.

I'm in love with breathing, and I'm glad to have some of my tax dollars going to replacing coal. I'm not currently in a position to buy and install them directly on my home, so I'm glad of everyone else who is, getting incentives for doing so.

I'm a conservative and I could give a flying fuck about the GOP. I don't know if solar power is the answer but it may be a part of the answer and as long as it can pay it's own way it deserves a chance. It almost has to be better than coal. The GOP claims to be conservative but they're really just like the fucking DEMS, all about money.

Serious question for you then: Should it have to pay its own way NOW when fossil fuels are still cheaper? Or should we wait until fossil fuels become harder to come by and the prices go up and we get economic impacts as a result and only then invest in replacement power sources because they will be able to pay their own way then? In my opinion avoidance of the disruption inherent in waiting is worth some investment now.

The biggest subsidy fossil fuel companies get is they don't have to pay the cost the pollution the use of their products imposes on society. That's not unique to them but they're probably benefit the most from that.

The problem with applying your conservative principles in this case is that the impacts from global warming will be upon us long before coal is no longer economically viable. Those making money from coal do not care about the consequences, since they're making big bucks while taking a small personal risk, whereas their profits have a negative impact on us all. If coal burning had no negative impact, I would agree, but since it does, it needs to be monitored and an alternative needs to be found

Those getting fat off the status quo certainly realize they are shifting the costs associated with fossil fuels to everyone else in the world in a Tragedy of the Commons [wikipedia.org] type of manner. This is exactly why the fossil fuel industry is so keen on denying global warming -- if people start to think that industry should bear the true costs of its products, rather than let that industry shift those costs to humanity for free (another form of privatizing profits and socializing losses) -- then there is going to be a hit on their bottom line when it becomes clear that fossil fuels are not in fact cheaper than other sources of power when all costs are factored in. To keep their position, the fossil fuel industry must pretend there are no consequences to pollution, and convince as many people of that as possible.

I too don't think the govt should be picking winners and losers either, most especially because the merit being judged here is likely political rather than technical.

I like that the market is starting to work to promote solar, and I think soon it will pick up on other "green" energy things. Oil came into its own without a ton of federal help, so why can't alternative forms of energy?

That being said...I hope the govt also doesn't jump in (either party) and start trying to regulate to death the fledgling solar industry or other green energy companies.

Govt should be there just enough to allow the market to roll, but also stay out of the way once it starts rolling.

China and the EU are in an on-and-off trade war over photovoltaics. China is heavily subsidising production there in order to churn the panels out so cheap, European manufacturers cannot match them - thus effectively securing a production monopoly which can later be leveraged. Taking a loss now to secure a strategic advantage. The EU is not happy with this.

Everyone, including the OP, mentions Solyndra as this big failure of the solar industry, but nobody discusses why it failed. Their business model was based on selling non-silicon based panels at a time when the price of silicon panels was skyrocketing. Then, as you mention, the Chinese government hands billions of dollars to their silicon based solar panel manufacturers, and their prices subsequently plummeted.

If the US and the EU decide to leave their renewable energy sector to the whims of the free market, while allowing China to subsidizes the hell out of it- we might as well just hand the entire industry over to them.

Everyone, including the OP, mentions Solyndra as this big failure of the solar industry, but nobody discusses why it failed. Their business model was based on selling non-silicon based panels at a time when the price of silicon panels was skyrocketing. Then, as you mention, the Chinese government hands billions of dollars to their silicon based solar panel manufacturers, and their prices subsequently plummeted.

If the US and the EU decide to leave their renewable energy sector to the whims of the free market, while allowing China to subsidizes the hell out of it- we might as well just hand the entire industry over to them.

A better approach is to NOT give money to companies, but use tariffs to make the price of Chinese-sourced panels reflect their actual, unsubsidized costs. That's what tariffs are for. This approach Offers 3 benefits:

1. China's cheap panels are no longer cheap - their Governmental payouts to buy the market are eliminated.

2. The Federal Government actually gets a few dollars via the original funding method (tariffs).

3. The "best man wins" concept of the Free Market can still work since companies must compete not to see who is handed a pile of cash from DC, but on quality and pricing of product relative to other players.

If you don't think the government should be interfering in the free market, then stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. If an oil company can't make a profit at the current price of oil then let it die.

Here, even the FLIPPING HERITAGE FOUNDATION, the extreme right wing think tank disagrees with you.

Oil Subsidies That Should Be Removed

First, let’s take a look at oil subsidies that are obvious and unnecessary. Congress should eliminate the following subsidies:
Government R&D. The Department of Energy (DOE) has spent taxpayer dollars on oil research and development, including funding for unconventional oil, gas, and coal. Although President Obama’s FY 2012 budget request significantly cuts funding for the Office of Fossil Energy, decreasing its size by $417.8 million below the FY 2010 appropriation, it does not go far enough. The only funding in this area should maintain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, for which the President’s budget requests an appropriate $121.7 million. Eliminating all other fossil energy funding would save $399 million.
Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Tax Credit. Oil producers receive a 15 percent tax credit for costlier methods and technologies, such as injecting liquids and carbon dioxide into the earth. Many EOR processes are no longer in use, and the tax credit applies only when the price of oil falls below a certain level.
Marginal Well Production Credit. Marginal wells produce 15 or fewer barrels of oil per day, produce heavy oil, or produce mostly water and fewer than 25 barrels of oil per day. The marginal well production credit is another safety-net tax provision. This is another preferential tax credit that Congress should repeal.

Applied research of any kind—not just oil research and development—is better left to the private sector. The private sector should not be subsidized because of market conditions, as happens with the so-called safety-net tax credits that kick in if the price of oil falls below a certain level.

Oil was helped out by overcapacity in the rail system brought about by federal stimulus in the railroad industry. Every successful enterprise depends on services either provided by our intervened in by the government. To this day big oil is helped out by significant tax treatments and cheap lease rights as well as the HUGE intervention of the US military is global supply (Iraq alone is around 2.5 trillion in subsidy for the two wars).

Oil came into its own without a ton of federal help, so why can't alternative forms of energy?

Seriously?

A quick Google tells me that the oil industry has been receiving subsidies since essentially day one, by being allowed to write off the full cost of drilling new wells. Even to this day the oil industry in the US gets $4 billion per year in subsidies one way or another.=Smidge=

Did you miss that part where utilities where lobbying politicians to punish people who switch over to solar? is that not just them playing at winners and losers as well? if utilities (or petro companies) can't compete against solar then they deserve to fade away and not be propped up by the Government.

The thing is, I can put solar on my house, and I will be to able to generate enough power, on occasion, to have some extra to put back on the grid. With the right configuration and local storage, I can even go off the grid. As a consumer, the other options you mention are things I can't do. Sure, solar is more expensive per KWH, but at least it's doable for lots of homeowners.

Separately, you may not have noticed that the Republicans have held effective veto power over new legislation in the Senate until just yesterday. Thus, making the claim the Republicans (even with a minority in the Senate) can be held somewhat responsible for lack of progress in the area seems reasonable.

Solar needs lots of space to produce large amounts of power, sure. But we have lots of wasted space in our urban and suburban centers. Every rooftop that doesn't have solar panels is a target for panels. In a single family home, not only do you generate electricity, the panels shade the structure and keep it cooler in the summer months.

Germany is hardly what anyone would call a bastion of sunshine, but they seem to be making quite a go of solar.

As for the subsidies for solar and other renewables: only fair. The US subsidizes oil with tax breaks, incentives and let's not even get started on the military adventures we've been on to control/protect our oil interests in the middle-east.

Solar can use space that's not being used for anything else, like rooftops.

this only works in places with a lot of room and a lot of sun

My friends have an off-grid house. Solar panels that feed a battery bank, plus a gasoline-powered generator as a backup. They very rarely run the generator, mostly in the winter. This is in central NY, which definitely doesn't get a lot of sun. Their heat comes from a wood stove. So they meet most of their energy needs with non-fossil sources. It's really not as hard as you think.

The big US government-subsidized solar production efforts like Solyndra failed because the *Chinese* government put up *even bigger subsidies* for their own research and production (without which, Solyndra was originally in line to be solidly financially successful). So, China will control the major energy technology sectors in the upcoming century, and America will become a technological laggard dependent on Chinese technology and manufacturing. Brilliant long-term planning for critical national infrastructure needs and technological leadership!

China is a country with actual intelligent leadership and planning for long-term stability. They may be repressive authoritarian fucks, but at least they're not repressive authoritarian fucks like the Republican party who will also run their country into the ground for short-term greed.